Network-device-to-network-device interference in wireless digital networks has been and remains to be one of the major bottlenecks that negatively affect the overall system capacity in dense deployments where wireless network devices are routinely ceiling-mounted.
The draft IEEE 802.11ac standard introduces wider 80-megahertz (MHz) and 160-MHz RF channels. While the 5-gigahertz (GHz) ISM band specified by the draft IEEE 802.11ac standard offers a higher total bandwidth than the 2.4 GHz frequency band, wider channels and utilization of the dynamic frequency selection (DFS) technique, as well as other regulatory restrictions mean the number of channels available in a particular deployment of a wireless digital network operating in accordance with the draft IEEE 802.11ac standard remains limited. Oftentimes, only 3 or 4 channels are available in such a deployment.
Therefore, the introduction of the draft IEEE 802.11ac standard does not by itself alleviate the problem of network-device-to-network-device interference. In either IEEE 802.11n networks or draft IEEE 802.11ac networks, it is inevitable that in dense deployments in both the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz bands, some wireless network devices will be within the interference and communication ranges of other wireless network devices operating on the same channel or on adjacent channels.
Techniques that address the network-device-to-network-device interference problem by adjusting transmit power of the wireless network devices are not always the best solution, as they may adversely affect the reliability of connections between wireless network devices and client devices.